


Femme Fatales from Fucked-Up Families

by Panic_at_the_Discord



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 20:20:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panic_at_the_Discord/pseuds/Panic_at_the_Discord
Summary: Set after 2x08, because I was really annoyed that Lena saved the day AND DID NOT GET A VISIT AFTERWARD.So, now she does.Enjoy





	Femme Fatales from Fucked-Up Families

**Author's Note:**

> Hello All! This is my first fic, and honestly I mostly wrote it to impress a girl a while back (can't say if that worked very well or not), so I'd love to know what you think. Comments, kudos, or criticisms welcome (no need to be gentle, I'm a big girl :P )

Since her adoption, Lena Luthor had always prickled at the reminder that she wasn’t a real Luthor, that she would always be an outsider, distinct from the true born Luthors. Watching her (adoptive) mother get hauled away for attempting to commit mass genocide of all aliens in National City earlier today may have changed her view on that, once and for all. Sure, they had never had a fantastic relationship, as Lex was always obviously Lillian’s favorite, but Lena spent her whole life since her adoption trying to get her family to view her as equally valid and Luthor. She just wanted her mother to introduce her without qualification. For the very first time since her adoption, Lena took solace in the fact that she was only a Luthor in name, as even that tie to the family was more of a burden than a benefit.

Since Lex’s incarceration, she’d been working tirelessly to “restore the Luthor name” without ever realizing that Lex was the one that accurately reflected their family’s values. She shouldn’t have been shocked at Supergirl’s accusation, and shouldn’t have been so defensive of her mother. She should have been able to see the cruelty that hid in her soul, as cruel jibes about how she’d never be good enough due to her inferior parentage were a constant. Still, as cold and heartless as she had always been toward Lena, Lena never suspected that she was a genuinely evil person. After she kicked Supergirl out of her office, she began to consider the possibility that she could be, and the more she had thought about her mother’s love for Lex, and her resentment of his imprisonment, the more she believed Supergirl. 

Lena still holds love for Lex, naturally. Despite all of his flaws, despite his megalomania and generalized depravity, she could never look at him without seeing the sweet boy that had made her feel welcome in the Luthor family, once upon a time. She smiles at the bittersweet memory, and begins to wonder where his life took a turn; how he changed from the sweet and caring brother she knew to the madman he showed the world he was.

She had spent half of the day wondering who went off the rails first- Lex or Lillian? Sure, Lex’s spiral into insanity had been overwhelmingly public, and he had crashed and burned spectacularly before anyone had reason to believe there was anything wrong with Lillian, but what if she had somehow doomed Lex to his fate through her parenting? What if she was evil all along, just better at hiding her depravity until after his failure? Or was it his actions and their consequences that caused Lillian, always so faithfully supportive of Lex and critical of Lena, to follow him down the rabbit hole? Or was there, perhaps, a familial tendency to mental instability, from which Lena was only saved by nature of her true parentage? She may never be sure.

She pursed her crimson lips as she swirled the wine around in the glass in front of her. Turning Lillian in for attempting genocide hadn’t been a difficult decision, once she knew the truth, and it wasn’t the reason she was sitting here looking for peace at the bottom of a wine bottle. Supergirl told her, but it wasn’t until later, when she saw it with her own eyes, that she accepted the truth. She had called her mother in on a bluff. She hadn’t believed any of what she was saying, and part of her hoped that Lillian would look at her as though she’d grown three heads and ask if she’d gone mad. The difficult part was realizing that Supergirl was right, and that her name was even more intimately associated with xenophobia, that there would be no escaping the “Never trust a Luthor” mentality. That happy thought was why she was sitting alone in her office, trying to drink a whole bottle of Pinot Noir alone.

As she drained her glass of wine, and reached for the bottle on the desk to refill it, she heard a light knock on the balcony door behind her. “You know,” she started as she stood to get another glass, but didn’t bother looking behind her, “that door’s still not really an entrance.” Glass in hand, she turned to walk back to her desk and offered a tired smirk to the woman on the other side of the glass. She took in her blue and red suit, cape still dramatically billowing in the light wind on the balcony as she poured two glasses of Pinot. “But,” she said as she beckoned Supergirl to enter, “I suppose you can use it as such.”

Supergirl slowly opened the door with a quiet swish and stepped in, taking the proffered wine from Lena’s grasp and nervously holding it in both of her hands as she walked to stand in front of Lena’s desk. Lena leaned on the front of her desk and sipped from her glass as she watched Supergirl gaze into hers, clearly wanting to speak but hesitant. With a smirk she set her glass down primly. “I know alcohol is occasionally called liquid courage, but I think you have to drink it for it to work.” Supergirl’s sky blue eyes finally met Lena’s startling green. “In any case, I very much doubt it would help you. What’s on your mind, Supergirl?”

Supergirl shook her head incredulously. “How can you be so casual right now? I mean, you saved the day, and-and thank you for that, but what was all that about ‘I am a Luthor?’” She threw her hands up in exasperation, sloshing the wine almost out of the glass still clutched in her hand. “Why couldn’t you tell me? I thought for a moment that you really were on her side, and- I don’t know, maybe… maybe I should have had more faith in you after standing right here, in your office and telling you how sure I was that you weren’t like her, but you did a really good job of pretending to be, and… Why?” she finished weakly, as she turned to meet Lena’s gaze.

“Well, Supergirl,” Lena sighed as she straightened to her full height and met the heroine’s eyes, “you had to look devastated, like all of your hope in there being a good Luthor had been dashed.” She stated simply. “Lillian would have been able to see through you if you didn’t believe me, and then she could have gotten away. Really, I made your part easier. And,” she swallowed the emotion that threatened to rise up through her composed exterior, in a manner that would have been imperceptible to anyone without super hearing, “I doubt you would have trusted me even if you had been part of the plan from the beginning, because I don’t think that even the ever-optimistic Supergirl can ever hear my name without immediately assuming that I’m like Lex- like them, now. Never trust a Luthor, right?” she finished with a bitter chuckle.

Kara gaped for a moment, before her eyes narrowed in offense. “I trusted you when I came here to ask for your help. I trust you every single time I step into your office, because I come here after people start thinking you’re involved in whatever the problem of the week is. Every time they tell me ‘Don’t trust her, Supergirl; she’s a Luthor’ and every time I tell them you’re different, and that it’s unfair to just assume you’re involved.” Kara watched as Lena’s eyes widened and she took a steadying breath through her mouth- not a gasp, Lena would never gasp. “I trusted you right up until you turned that key, Lena,” She took a step towards the CEO, closing the distance between them, and grabbing at Lena’s wrist as she tried to turn away from her gaze under the guise of picking up her wine.

When Kara gently turned Lena back toward her, placing her glass of wine down next to Lena’s, she was surprised to find tears in the CEO’s shockingly green eyes. She held her gaze, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I could have stopped you from turning it, Lena. I could have run over there and thrown you across the port in less than a second. I didn’t think you would turn it until you did, Lena. And it made me feel like I was about to lose my planet all over again, not to mention feeling like it would be all my fault for stupidly trusting you.” Letting go of Lena’s wrist, she took a step back, maintaining eye contact. “You could have told me,” her voice cracked when she finished.  
Lena stood stock still for a moment, at a loss for words, before turning a touch abruptly to pick up her wine from her desk with shaking hands and taking a long drink as Supergirl waited for her response. Putting her wine back down, with her back still turned, she whispered in a voice that would have barely been audible to anyone but Supergirl “I’m sorry.” Taking a deep breath and straightening as she turned, she continued. “I should have listened when you told me she was the head of Cadmus. I just… I couldn’t see her as a genocidal megalomaniac. Our relationship has always been rocky,- she’s never thought I was anywhere near as good as her precious Lex- but that… I couldn’t think that of her. I’m sorry.” She blinked back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.

“I know what it’s like to suddenly be faced with the fact that your family are genocidal freaks thinking their actions are justified ‘for the greater good.’” Lena scoffed and rolled her eyes in disbelief, but Kara continued before she could protest. “Oh, no, I’m serious. That virus was Kryptonian in origin. It was developed by my father to be used against an invasion from another planet, and would have been harmless to Kryptonians if released. My aunt wanted to rob the Kryptonian race of their free will for depleting the planet’s resources, and tried to do it to Earth just last year! The Myriad wave was her creation! And I found that all out on top of constantly living in the shadow of my much more famous super-cousin. I know what it’s like. You can always trust me to look past the flaws of your family and judge you based on your merits. Rao knows I wish more people could do that for me,” She finished with a chuckle, and was relieved when Lena laughed with her.

“Wow! And here I thought I had the most dysfunctional family in any given room,” Lena laughed. “We should start a support group or something. Call it ‘Femmes Forged in the Fire’ or something else suitably inspirational. Of course, ‘Femme Fatales from Fucked-up Families’ is much too on the nose.” She joked, and Kara laughed and suddenly closed the distance between them and wrapped Lena in a warm hug. After the initial shock of the sudden physical contact wore off, Lena relaxed into the strong arms of the heroine and hugged her back.

“Friday nights, of course,” Kara laughed as she pulled away. Lena picked up her wine, and Kara quickly grabbed her previously untouched glass and raised it in toast. “To friends, F3, and Friday nights.” Lena smilingly touched the lip of her glass to Kara’s and the two drank. As Kara drained her glass, she put it down on Lena’s desk, and started walking toward the balcony. 

“Hey, Supergirl,” Lena called before she could cross the threshold. Kara turned around, giving her a confused look. “Barring any important saving of the day, I’d actually really like to see you on Friday. We can order Chinese, on me, if you want.”

Kara smiled. “Friday night it is, Lena.” With that, she flew off into the night.


End file.
